When Worlds Collide
Luke 19: 28-40
Palm Sunday, March 24, 2013
First Presbyterian Church, Sterling IL
Christina Berry
Luke 19: 28-40
After he had
said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When he had come near
Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of
the disciples, saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it
you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring
it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord
needs it.’”
So those who
were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the
colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” They said,
"The Lord needs it.” Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing
their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept
spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down
from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise
God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen,
saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in
heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” Some of the Pharisees in the crowd
said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you,
if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”
Today is the day
we remember what is often called “The Triumphal Entry” – Jesus entering
Jerusalem on a lowly beast, surrounded by the shouts and cheers of the littlest
and the least, who gathered with hope and joy to see the Messiah enter the holy
city.
“Blessed is the
one who comes in the name of the Lord!” they shouted.
“Hosanna! God
saves!” they cried.
They threw their
cloaks before him, and cut branches to lay in his path.
A people oppressed and
downtrodden, a people who had been waiting, breathless for hundreds of years, for
God to fulfill God’s promise, now gathered at the city gates as the one who embodied
all their hope entered in.
Old men wept to
see him come; mothers with babes in arms held them up for a blessing; fathers
spoke to their children, “Remember this, my child – remember that you were
there on the day the Messiah came to save his people.”
We still celebrate
with parades: returning heroes, commemorations of important days, holidays and
homecomings. Standing there, on the sidewalk of the main street, watching the
parade go past, there is something that makes the heart swell. In small towns,
parades mark the significance of time, and place and people. Parades tell us
something about ourselves:
what we value, who we honor, which stories we want
to tell again and again.
In Silver Lake,
where I was pastor for three years, we had parades all the time. There’s a
parade on St. Patrick’s Day that lasts about 5 minutes, another on Memorial
Day, not much longer. I’m told that in Darwin, Minnesota, proud home of the
world’s largest twine ball, the Darwin Days parade is so brief that when
they’ve completed the route, they all just go around again, to make it last
longer. The big parade in Silver Lake is during Pola-Czesky days, during which the
town used to celebrate their Czech and Polish heritage. Nowadays it’s a
three-day beer-soaked street dance complete with a lawn-tractor pull, a
lip-synch contest, church food booths with fried cheese curds and pork chops, and
toilet bowl races on Main Street.
The entire
celebration leads up to the big parade. Everybody in town goes.
They stake out
their spots on the church lawn early in the morning, under the shade of a big
chestnut tree, and applaud as the parade goes by. It begins with the American
Legion honor guard, continues with the drum line and some antique tractors, and
then come the floats: tractors pulling flatbed trailers on which are arrayed in
all their glorious young beauty, the local festival queens from all the
neighboring small towns. We have the Sausage Queen and her court, the Annandale
Aquacade princesses, the Potato Queen, the County Dairy queens, the Cokato Corn
Princesses – you get the idea.
Of course, there
is also the reigning Pola-Czesky queen and her court, the candidates for
coronation. After the parade, the visiting royalty wander around the tents and
the food booths dressed in evening gowns and tiaras, eating corn dogs and
cheese curds. I’m told they’re not allowed to have ketchup or mustard, lest
their gowns be stained prior to their attendance at the Pola-Czesky coronation. It’s all about the coronation, after the parade.
I suppose that’s
what the people lining that road to Jerusalem were thinking. This Jesus of
Nazareth, son of Joseph and Mary, riding in on a donkey, was about to ascend to
the throne.
He was going to
set right all that had been wrong, overthrow the mighty and send the rich away
empty, lift up the lowly and drive the occupying army out of the holy city.
But there was
another parade entering the city that day. Crossan and Borg,
in their book, The Last Week, describe
it:
“On the opposite
side of the city, from the west, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor
of Idumea,
Judea, and Samaria, entered Jerusalem at the head of a column of imperial
cavalry and soldiers… Imagine the imperial procession’s arrival in the city.
A visual panoply
of imperial power: cavalry on horses, foot soldiers, leather armor, helmets,
weapons, banners, golden eagles mounted on poles, sun glinting on metal and
gold. Sounds: the marching of feet, the creaking of leather, the clinking of
bridles, the beating of drums, the swirling of dust. The eyes of the silent
onlookers, some curious, some awed, some resentful.” (p. 3)
Borg and Crossan
go on to describe how this intersection of processions-- one peasant, one
imperial -- depict an essential conflict between rival social orders and rival
theologies. Jesus and the peasants usher in the kingdom of God as a counter-procession to Pilate’s display of the power of empire.
It takes no
great leap of imagination to see that this is happening still.
An unknown
preacher from Birmingham leads demonstrations of non-violent resistance
to
racial discrimination, and is met with violent resistance
in the form of clubs,
and firehoses, and bullets.
Economic
exploitation and greed collide with the limits of the free market,
and a global
financial meltdown occurs.
Military might
and hubris slam hard against entrenched cultural mores
and deeply imbedded
resentments,
and a grinding war of attrition sucks away resources, and lives.
Rampant greed
and the insatiable hunger for the next great thing
crash into mounting debt and
the gnawing dissatisfaction of affluenza.
Religious conservatives
who are certain of a literal interpretation of scripture
run head-on into
religious progressives who seek a more nuanced understanding.
Wills and wants
and words collide in our relationships and wound us
and those we love and live
with.
When worlds
collide, there are more losers than winners.
On the dusty
road to Jerusalem, though, something else happens:
The palms give way to the passion.
Disappointment
and disaster develop into deliverance.
Sorrow succumbs
to salvation.
Fear is followed
by freedom.
The kingdom of
God is ushered in.
God’s way meets
human ways, and instead of a train wreck, there is mercy.
In place of
retribution there is restoration.
In lieu of
damnation there is grace.
Pilate’s parade
came into the city to suppress trouble,
to
enforce the law, uphold order and quell an uprising.
Jesus’ parade
came into the city to support the weak,
to fulfill the law, usher in a new
order, and lift up the downtrodden.
We’re marching
together in a parade today.
It begins with a
procession of palms, and ends at the empty tomb.
On the way, on
Maundy Thursday, we stop at the communion table.
There, we are
called to remembrance. Lifting up the bread and cup together,
we are reminded
of what we value, who we honor,
which stories we want to tell again and again.
At this table,
two worlds collide:
God’s kairos
breaks into our chronos;
heaven and earth
meet;
peace and
justice embrace;
the church
militant meets the church triumphant;
Christ’s
humiliation intersects with his exaltation;
the hungry are
fed, the thirsty drink,
and the one who
traveled that dusty road to the cross
welcomes us at the joyful feast.
Hosanna!
Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest!
Blessed is the King
who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the
highest !
Amen.
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